Faculty Publication Database

Listing of faculty publications on Singapore with available abstracts and links

Please search below from our database of more than 8,000 Singapore-related publications. Updates with abstracts and additions of new publications are ongoing. To search more effectively, please use the MLA or APA citation style which uses the author’s last name and initials.

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What social phenomena affect the pattern of intra- and inter-ethnic ties among Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Others in Singapore? I examine group size, ethnic solidarity, ethnic competition, and kinship as plausible explanations of inter-ethnic contact among 1,143 persons linked to 7,414 network members. I find a sizeable amount of inter-ethnic ties between Chinese and Malays. Group size is the major factor: As Chinese outnumber Malays 5.4 to 1 (76% to 14%), Malays have more opportunities for interethnic contact than do Chinese. Once the size of the two ethnic groups is accounted for, no other factor substantially affects Malay-Chinese inter-ethnic contact.

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In this study, we analyze the personal networks of 379 college students in Singapore to explore the social affordances of traditional and new channels in communicating with different types of social relationships and their associations with personal well-being. Results suggest communication channels play a complex role in how strong and weak ties are related to personal well-being. On one hand, face-to-face communication, landlines, mobile phones, text messaging, and social network sites are associated with the strong ties that boost personal well-being. On the other hand, mobile phones, text messaging, social network sites, and video chat (but not face-to-face or landline communication) are associated with weak ties and personal well-being. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we show that strong and weak ties are both important to the personal well-being of college students in Singapore; second, we show how different communication channels are associated with different kinds of social ties. Mobile and social media play a critical role in these social ties.